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Karl Karlsen arrives at the Seneca County Courthouse in Waterloo on May 14. Karlsen's attorney, Lawrence Kasperek (right), will ask a judge today to dismiss the indictment against Karlsen.
(Stephen D. Cannerelli | scannerelli@syracuse.com)

The wife of a Seneca County man accused of murder secretly recorded him at least twice last November, according to court papers.

Karl Karlsen, of Romulus, is charged with killing his son, Levi, in 2008 by knocking a pickup truck off a jack and crushing Levi as he worked beneath the truck.

Prosecutors plan to use recordings of conversations between Karl and Cindy Karlsen at Karl Karlsen's trial, the papers state. They also plan to use a one-page statement Karl Karlsen made to a sheriff's lieutenant the day Karlsen was arrested. The substance of the recorded conversations and the statement were not available.

Karlsen's lawyer, Lawrence Kasperek, has asked a judge to dismiss the grand jury indictment and to toss out the statements Karlsen made to his wife and the lieutenant. Kasperek and District Attorney Barry Porsch will argue those motions in Seneca County Court in Waterloo at 10 a.m. today.

In court papers, Kasperek said the grand jury was not presented with enough evidence to indict Karlsen and was given improper instructions. Kasperek also says that the statements Karlsen, 53, made to his wife and to a sheriff's deputy were obtained illegally and should not be used at Karlsen's trial.

The trial is set for October.

Levi Karlsen's death was initially considered an accident, and no autopsy was performed. After an investigation last year, police charged Karl Karlsen with second-degree murder and insurance fraud.

Karlsen had pleaded not guilty, and told The Post-Standard in a jailhouse interview in December that he did not kill his son. Karlsen said he and Cindy went to family event on Nov. 20, 2008, and Karl found Levi beneath the truck when they returned.

"He was cold. He was blue," Karlsen said. "My wife came out, she knelt down, we're both crying."

In the interview, Karlsen repeatedly said that Cindy had set him up for arrest because they were going through a divorce last year. Cindy is Karlsen's second wife; she is not Levi's mother.

The day after Thanksgiving, Karlsen said, he drove to meet Cindy for dinner at the Golden Buck restaurant in the Finger Lakes town of Ovid. Karlsen was met instead by two police officers, who took him to the Seneca County jail for questioning.

Court papers, however, say that Seneca County sheriff's Lt. John Cleere called Karlsen and asked him to come to the sheriff's office for an interview. Karlsen was arrested at 10 p.m. that day, court papers say. He has been in jail since.

According to court papers, Cindy Karlsen recorded her husband at least twice - on Nov. 14 and again on Nov. 16. Those conversations are stored on thumb drives, the papers said.

In addition, Karlsen made a written statement the day of his arrest to Seneca County sheriff's Lt. John Cleere, court papers say.

In the interview with The Post-Standard, three weeks after his arrest, Karlsen said he had made a statement the day of his arrest but could not recall what it contained. He said he had been questioned by police for hours and was denied his pain medicines.

Karlsen suffers from a variety of medical problems, and uses a walker to get in and out of court.

Seneca County Sheriff Jack Stenberg, who observed a deputy and a state trooper interviewing Karlsen, said Karlsen appeared lucid and not in pain during the eight-hour interview.

Karl Karlsen did receive the $700,000 payment from his son's insurance policy in 2009. Karl Karlsen's financial advisor said the money was originally deposited into funds for Levi's two young daughters, but that Karl and Cindy withdrew all of it.

Karl Karlsen's first wife, Christina, died in a fire in California 1991 in an old mining shack where the couple lived with their three children. According to reports of the California Department of Forestry and Calaveras County sheriff's deputies, Christina Karlsen was trapped in the bathroom where Karl had nailed plywood over the window just days before.

Karl Karlsen told authorities then he rescued his three young children - including Levi, then 5 - but could not get to his wife.

California authorities last fall re-opened that case after Karlsen's arrest in New York.